


Whose Child Is This?

by Wildcard



Category: Discworld - Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:50:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildcard/pseuds/Wildcard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Sam's first birthday is a very special occasion not only for Vimes and Sybil but for the entire Watch. Vimes/Sybil, Carrot/Angua.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whose Child Is This?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vomit_bunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vomit_bunny/gifts).



> I really did mean to write something Vimes-centric but somehow, it's impossible to write about Vimes without writing about the Watch. They all snuck in. I hope you enjoy this story and it makes you smile.

" 'ere, you think these are real silver?" Corporal Nobbs asked, inspecting the spoon in his hand with the air of a connoisseur. From the walls, generations of Ramkins looked down on him with varying degrees of well-bred disapproval and horror as he licked the spoon experimentally and gave a satisfied nod. "She's a real lady, she is. Nothin' but the best."

"Put it back, Nobby." Sergeant Colon said, not even bothering to look over. He was ill at ease in the Ramkin house and no amount of graciousness from Lady Sybil could convince him that he wasn't about to commit a terrible faux pas. Unlike Nobby, he couldn't take refuge in the chirping city sparrow act and delight her with his cheeky, down-to-earth manner. He was a stolid, firmly lower-class man whose presence in the house was an affront to the portraits that were surveying him so disdainfully. He wasn't about to make the situation worse by overlooking Nobby's tendency to half-inch anything that wasn't nailed down.

"I wouldn't steal from 'er!" What passed for a sense of chivalry in Nobby was offended at the implication. He used the spoon to help himself to another of the fiddly little eggs that the posh people liked and speculated, "'ow'd you think Angua's managing them?"

"Dunno." Colon munched on a cracker with a bit of cheese. The quality of the food might be several cuts above what he was used to, but Colon favored quantity over quality. The rich, sharp flavor of the Lancre Blue didn't impress him when compared to the tallow-like wheels of cheese that his wife bought. "I hexpect Lady Sybil's already thought of that."

As a matter of fact, Sergeant Colon was quite right; the Watch's resident werewolf had been given a special set of steel utensils and could enjoy the dinner just like the rest of them. Angua was actually more at ease than most of the Watch members. True, her family might have preferred to embrace the werewolf lifestyle and eat out of dog bowls when they weren't hunting and eating villagers, but her mother had insisted on some standards being maintained which was why Angua was one of the few Watch members who weren't treating the excess of cutlery as some sort of Clue from a devious criminal mastermind.

"What's this one for?" Corporal Cheery Littlebottom asked, indicating a fork that she'd yet to see anyone using. She'd been seated on the left of Angua and in her red-sequinned dress with matching battle-axe, she was possibly the most dazzling person at the table. Literally. Across the table from her, Ping was wearing smokey glasses to try to cut down on the blinding shine of light off her sequins.

Before Angua could answer, Sally jumped in helpfully, "That's for crustaceans. You use it to pry them out of their shells."

Anticipating Cheery's next question, she pointed at one of the dishes of lobsters. "Those are crustaceans. Lobsters, in fact. Said to be quite the delicacy."

Cheery regarded it suspiciously. She was not impressed by the sight of what looked like large red insects, even if they were stuffed with other insects and slathered in a creamy sauce. "I think I'll stick to the rats."

Rats-on-a-skewer, fried rat, soya rat and even dwarf bread had all been catered for the party by Gimlet's Hole Food Delicatessen. Sybil had decided that her Genuan chef wasn't quite up to the challenge of cooking for dwarfs or trolls, so the food for the trolls had also been catered from Gimlet's. The table groaned under the weight of all the different types of coal, coke, ash and sediments. Every effort had been made to take into account all the varying species and ethnicities in the Watch, and surveying the table, Sybil found herself pleased with the overall result.

"I think it's going well, don't you, Sam?" She asked her husband.

"Yes, dear." Duke Vimes replied automatically, his attention wholly on Young Sam whom he was trying to feed a spoonful of chocolate pudding. It had been Sybil's idea to hold a grand party for Young Sam's first birthday, so Vimes had relinquished all control over the event to her. It had been a pleasant surprise for him to find that she had only invited the Watch but she had explained to him that the nobility of the City weren't actually interested in celebrations for infants unless betrothals were involved. That suited Vimes just fine. The last thing he wanted on Young Sam's birthday was to have to put up with Rust and his ilk.

The baby gurgled and spat up a mouthful of brown stuff that even a gnome might have hesitated to eat. Vimes patiently wiped at Young Sam's cheeks, then tried again, "Where is my chocolate pudding? Here it is!"

Some men might have quailed at feeding their baby in front of all their subordinates; Vimes thought that having food spit onto him was one of the least embarrassing things the Watch had witnessed happening to him.

Focused on his son, he ignored the sound of Sybil tapping a fork against her wineglass primly as well as the hush that eventually followed.

"Sam and I would like to thank all of you for coming to Young Sam's first birthday party. It's been wonderful having you all here and I hope you enjoyed yourselves. We will now proceed to the Pale Blue Drawing Room to open his presents and enjoy some light after dinner drinks." Sybil announced, looking down the table at the few Watchmen who were still making desultory attempts to eat more dessert, and at Nobby, who was stuffing his pockets with little tarts. The members of the Unseen University would have appreciated the Ramkin attitude towards entertaining guests, which boiled down to making sure that they would never have any reason to go home and complain that the Ramkins stinted on wine, food or anything else.

"Who's a good boy?" Vimes asked Young Sam, having finally managed to get his son to swallow.

"Sam," Sybil hinted gently, holding out her arms for her son.

Vimes glanced upwards, the scraping of chairs and sound of people standing up only then registering with him. He wiped at Young Sam's face hastily, making sure there wasn't any chocolate pudding left on him to smear on Sybil's rather grand blue dress. "Present time?"

"Yes, dear." Sybil took Young Sam into her arms and pressed a fond kiss on top of his head. His fine, light brown hair resembled his father's and Sybil fancied that she could see her husband's intelligence in her baby's eyes. She led the way to the Pale Blue Dining Room, Vimes walking dutifully at her side. A large fireplace made the room toasty warm, lending a golden glow to the walls and catching on the burnished candle holders. There was plenty of light and room for everyone to crowd around the table heaped with presents and watch them be opened. Vimes and Sybil had made it clear that nobody was expected to bring gifts and that it was not compulsory in the least; every Watch member had brought something.

Sybil put Young Sam down on the table, in front of the pile of gifts, and asked her son, "Which would you like to open first, dear?"

The baby grizzled and reached out for the nearest present. Rectangular, wrapped very carefully and decorated with a flourish of ribbons, it was about the size of the baby himself.

Proudly, Carrot said, "That's mine."

"Then we simply must open it first." Sybil said, smiling sweetly at him. Her fingers picked at the ribbons, undoing them expertly, and the paper fell open to reveal a thick book with an embossed cover that declared, "The Laws and Ordinances of the Cities Ankh and Morpork". Below it, in smaller text, it declared, "WITH ILLUSTRATIONS!".

"It's got illustrations, look." Carrot, leaning over to flip through the book. Indeed, it did have illustrations, though most of them were of the sort that needed quite a bit of squinting to make out and then quite a few drinks afterwards to forget.

"Thank you, Captain." Ever the lady, Sybil shut the book and put it to one side without her smile faltering. A pointed elbow to the rib snapped Vimes out of his flashback of the last time he'd seen a book like that.

"Yes, thank you, Carrot." He said. "I'm sure Young Sam'll enjoy reading it once he grows out of Where's My Cow?." And, he added silently, if Young Sam ever needed to defend himself against other children, he'd have a convenient weapon to hand.

"The chapter on Domestic and Domesticated Animals (Care and Protection) could answer that." Carrot said, attempting to open the book to the right section. Angua quickly stepped forwards and pushed another parcel at Sybil to distract them.

"Here, open this. It's from me." Since she hadn't been able to dissuade Carrot from his conviction that a book on the laws of Ankh-Morpork was the perfect gift, Angua had decided to do damage control by getting a gift of her own for Young Sam.

Vimes took the parcel from Sybil and opened it. Inside was a little stuffed dog; not the most exciting of choices, but certainly a safe one. What baby didn't love stuffed toys? Young Sam certainly did. As soon as he was handed the golden-haired dog, he chewed enthusiastically on one ear to the sound of general laughter.

"'ere, open mine next." Nobby had somehow managed to push his way to the front of the crowd, proffering what looked like a wadded-up newspaper to Sybil. When it was opened to reveal a somewhat worn-out pacifier, money changed in hands in the crowd as bets were settled on exactly what he'd taken from the Lost and Found.

"Oh, how sweet." With the grace of a true lady, Sybil managed to put the pacifier out of Young Sam's reach without making it obvious that was what she was doing. Vimes privately resolved to return it to the Lost and Found the first thing the next morning.

"This one's from me, sir." Cheery bashfully gave Vimes a black velvet box which turned out to contain a black cord with a thumb-sized gold pendant dangling from it, sized to fit Young Sam's hand. Seeing Vimes stare at it, Cheery explained, "It's got the Watch motto engraved on the back, and the shield on the front. So people'll know who's protecting him."

Any of Sybil's peers would've had the Ramkin crest on one side and the Vimes crest on the other. The fact that Cheery had chosen to put the Watch motto and crest on it made it inarguably clear that Young Sam wasn't just Vimes and Sybil's son; he was a Watch baby and belonged to all of them, just as Vimes did.

The Watch would protect him, and he would protect the city. The gift was for Young Sam but it was Vimes who felt his throat close up as he gently, tenderly tied the necklace around Young Sam's neck and gave his baby over to the city.


End file.
